Main course objective is to provide a critical and multidisciplinary overview on continuities and discontinuities of major historical and political developments in the Soviet period and in contemporary Russia, with a specific focus on responses to globalization, foreign policy and institution building.

Course participants should preferably have a basic knowledge of Cold War, European and Russian Political History of the last century. The course is divided in two complimentary parts: first, an analysis and reflection on the structural motivations of the Soviet consolidation, its collapse and their interlacing both with domestic and international politics in the Cold War era; second, an analysis of main developments in post-Soviet Russia, mainly focused on the emergence of Putin’s presidency and its principal features both at international and internal level. Lectures will be monographic on specific topics and will follow the evolutions of Russian history until present time.

The course will develop on the following points:

1. The 2014 Ukrainian crisis was one of the gravest geopolitical earthquakes in Europe since 1991 and it is still presenting its aftershocks in international relations while manifesting the analytical naïveté of many Western decision-makers who had previously underrated – or ingenuously misinterpreted – the political steps pursued by Russia over the last twenty-five years.

2. Today's Russia cannot be understood without analyzing the Soviet past and its legacies, particularly Gorbachev's attempt to reform the Communist system and the reasons of its failure in a long-term perspective.

3. The paradigm of "transition" cannot be usefully applied to Russia inasmuch it has been developing its own identity in terms of sovereignty, political system, institutions, rule of law and power politics.

4. The continuity between the USSR and Russia cannot be confirmed, as changes in the last quarter century have been extremely significant in economic, social, and even political terms.

5. At the same time, we need a better understanding of the Soviet legacies especially from the point of view of global and geopolitical outlooks, as the USSR/Russia should be seen as a country that provided its own responses to the Western led globalization and as global player embracing the perspective of multipolarity.

6. The Russian idea of "sovereign democracy" and Russia' role in the post-Soviet space should be considered as crucial for a more general assessment of the world order in our times, as the opposition between multipolarity and monopolarity is still contested.

7. Although the last 15 years have been marked by the leading role of Putin, the perception of the one-man role is more than reality. In fact, the Russian political system and its political narrative are much more multifaceted, presenting a complex scenario where parties, bureaucracies and ideology makers interact, cooperate or compete with each other.

8. The West persistently continues to misinterpret Russia’s international and domestic strategies on the basis of a number of stereotypes, while an in-depth political and institutional background analysis is needed.

9. As Putin aims the return of the ‘power state’ and to get Russia back in the short list of global players, most of the Kremlin’s policies at international and national level must be understood through the lens of this overall objective.

10. The recent events in Ukraine and Syria outline very clearly the new international settings of global and Eurasian geo-political scenarios.